Mark Twain Research Essay free essay sample

Although the books are comparable in many ways, they vary vastly. Mark Twain grew up on the Mississippi River with his parents and he was one of five children. When Mark was four years old his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri. Due to his father’s death when Mark was 12, his mother was left to raise the children on her own which caused the kids to start work at a young age. Mark’s first job was being an apprentice to a printer in his hometown. Twain then became a steam pilot on his most beloved place- the river. Mark trained with a Confederate militia for two weeks until they disbanded. He began travelling around the country reporting for newspapers, and slowly his novels began forming and becoming more and more popular. He then got married to Olivia Langdon on February 2, 1870. He and his wife had four children, only one of them lived to be married and have kids. Mark suffered from a short-term illness and died shortly after on April 21, 1910 at the age of seventy-four. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel, Huckleberry Finn, go hand in hand when it comes to being two of America’s greatest novels. The beginning of Huckleberry Finn starts directly with the end of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was published in 1876, and Huckleberry Finn was published in January of 1884. Mark Twain used countless rhetorical strategies throughout his novels. He is most commonly known for his humor, sarcasm, and satire. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a story about a troublemaking boy growing up in the town of St. Petersburg, Missouri right along the Mississippi River. Tom lived with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother, Sid. From the very beginning of the book, Tom Sawyer gets in trouble for skipping school and dirtying his clothes in a fight. Aunt Polly forces Tom to whitewash the fence, and as he does this he tricks his friends into giving him small treasures to do the work. Tom was a leader of his friends. He fell in love with the new girl, Becky Thatcher. He also became friends with Huck Finn, the son of the town drunkard. Tom and Huck went on an adventure to a cemetery one night and witness Injun Joe murdering Dr. Robinson. Scared, Tom and Huck agreed to never tell a soul about what they saw. Injun Joe wrongfully blamed Muff Potter for the crime and Tom began to feel very guilty that he knew the truth. Tom, Huck, and one of their friends, Joe Harper, decided to run away to an island to become pirates. The whole town of St. Petersburg began to worry and search the river for the missing bodies. Tom conjured up the great idea to make an appearance at their funerals. Enough guilt came over Tom that he decided to testify in the murder trial against Injun Joe. Potter was found not guilty, and Joe escaped through the courtroom window. Tom began to shadow Injun Joe every night during the summer once Tom finds out that Joe plans to attack the Widow Douglas, a well-respected citizen of St. Petersburg. One night when Tom and Huck were sneaking around a haunted house, they discovered Injun Joe had a stash of gold. With their classmates, Tom and Becky go on an adventure to McDougal’s cave with their classmates. The two get lost in the cave, and people begin to search for them the next morning. Ironically, Injun Joe was using the same cave as a hideout. Tom and Becky eventually make their way to safety and Becky’s father, Judge Thatcher, locksed the cave up with Joe inside and he ended up starving to death. Awhile later, Huck goes back into the cave to fetch the gold for himself. The Widow Douglass adopted Huck Finn, but Huck tried to escape civilized life. However, Tom convinced him to stay by telling Huck that if he does he can join Tom’s robber band. Huck agreed to stay. Huckleberry Finn starts off by familiarizing the reader with events that happened in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The setting of this book is also St. Petersburg. Huck is not thrilled or excited about his new life living with Widow Douglas. He is not fond of the chores, manners, cleanliness, church or school. Huck stays respectable so he is allowed to roam around and be in Tom’s band. Everything was fine until Huck’s drunken father, Pap, returned to town wanting all of Huck’s money he received from the gold. Widow and Judge Thatcher try effortlessly to gain legal custody of Huck, but failed because the new judge in town believes it is Pap’s rights as a father to keep Huck for himself. Widow still tried to keep Huck for himself, but Pap endlessly harassed Huck for months. Widow warned Pap to stay away, but he decided to kidnap Huck and hold him in a cabin across the river. When Pap left the house to drink Huck was locked inside, and when he returned the boy was beaten. Huck was fed up and decided to fake his own death. He killed a pig and spreads its blood all over the cabin. He hid out on Jackson’s Island in the middle of the River and watched as people searched for his body. A few days later, Huck met Jim, one of Miss Watson’s runaway slaves. Despite Huck feeling in the wrong for helping a runaway slave, Jim and Huck teamed up as a great storm flooded the Mississippi. They found a house and raft floating past the island. When they looted the house, they discovered there was a man who had been shot inside. Although the island had been pleasurable, the boys were forced to leave because people from the mainland saw smoke coming from the island. If they weren’t careful they would soon be figured out. They decided to head for the free states so Jim could be freed. On the way to the Ohio River they had an encounter with a gang of robbers but ended up leaving with their money. On a foggy night, the boys miss the Ohio River and run into men looking for escaped slaves. Jim deceived the men, but shortly after a steamboat wrecked into the raft separating Huck and Jim. Jim and Huck were reunited with a fixed raft and continue down the river with two men they rescued from being tracked by armed bandits. The two men turned out to be major conmen and tried to trick the townspeople into thinking that they are two brothers that just received a major inheritance. Huck planned to expose the duke and dauphin but they escaped and make it back to the raft just in time to catch Jim and Huck setting sail once again. The two men commit the worst crime and sell Jim to a local farmer. The house where Jim is being kept turns out to be Tom Sawyer’s aunt and uncle. Tom and Huck started scheming and Huck pretends to be Tom while Tom pretends to be Sid, his younger brother. The boys ransacked Aunt Sally’s house and Tom was shot in the leg during the process. As the end of the story unfolds, it turns out Jim was a free man anyway. His owner, Miss Watson, had died two months earlier and in her will she claimed Jim a free man. Jim then told Huck that the man they saw that was shot in the head was Pap. Aunt Sally offers to adopt Huck and care for him, but Huck stated that he was going to head out west. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were two very diverse characters. Tom Sawyer was a leader; he was very obedient, and was full of imagination. Huckleberry Finn, on the other hand, was a social outcast but he was admired by all the children around him. Everyone wanted to have no rules or stabilization, and he was a mother’s worst nightmare. He did not have a good home to grow up in like Tom did and that was reflected through his rebellious actions. Huck grew up independent and down to earth. Tom had an extravagant imagination that he used when executing his adventures. The two boys transformed and truly learned to care for one another as the novels went on. In the beginning, Tom envied Huck for his independence and freedom. However towards the end Tom persuaded Huck to give up his free lifestyle and live a civilized life with Widow Douglas. One important similarity between the two books was the setting. St. Petersburg was inspired by Mark Twain’s own hometown of Hannibal. St. Petersburg was located right alongside of the Mississippi River about eighty miles from St. Louis. Hannibal and St. Petersburg are almost identical, with many caves and islands all around. Mark Twain grew up spending his time on the river just as the boys did in the books. This was an important aspect of the novels because it allowed Mark Twain to give a full, vivid, and detailed description of the setting. Also, having one setting for two books allows a reader to connect the books together and help unite them together as sequels. A major difference between the two novels was the point of view. Point of view is the lens in which the reader sees and experiences the story through. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was narrated by an omniscient narrator, known as third person point of view. It seemed that this narrator was looking back in time explaining what happened in Tom and Huck’s childhood. However, in Huckleberry Finn, the novel was narrated by Huck Finn himself. This allowed the reader to go deeper into Huck Finn’s life. The reader was able to grow a deeper understanding of what was happening inside Huck’s mind. Due to the differences in the novel, the reader is more likely to feel as if they have a deeper connection with Huck than Tom because they spend a whole novel experiencing his adventures with him. Dialect had a major impact on the novels, and added a whole new dimension to both stories. Because the novels were placed in Missouri, slang and Southern-style talk was heavily used. Mark Twain used this to his advantage using a heavy amount of dialogue. â€Å"It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study. † This quote from chapter six in Huckleberry Finn was stated by Huck himself. This one quote alone puts a strong impression on how Huck felt about structure in his life. The absence of proper English also shows his lack of schooling and also that he was a strong-minded Southern boy. â€Å"Oh, they just have a bully time – take ships, and burn them, and get the money and bury it in awful places in their island where there’s ghosts and things to watch, it, and kill everybody in the ships – make ‘em walk a plank. They don’t kill the women – they’re too noble. And the women’s always beautiful, too. † This quote from chapter thirteen in The Adventures of Tom Sawyers was stated by Tom. He was using his exuberated imagination to describe his thoughts on a pirate’s daily life. This quote along with the quote from Huckleberry Finn truly adds a deeper understanding of each character. Satire, humor, and light-hearted fun were common themes between the two novels. Mark Twain constantly made it possible for the reader to laugh at the silly pranks and antics the two young boys did together. â€Å"My sole idea was to make a comic capital of everything that I saw and heard. My object was not to tell the truth, but to make people laugh. † said MarkTwain. He found pleasure in writing novels that made the public laugh. His stories were not to be taken seriously, but to entertain his readers. This made his novels that much more enjoyable. The Adventures of Tom Sawyers and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain will always be two of America’s greatest and most known novels. Mark Twain added a new dimension to writing. With his use of satire, dialect, and manipulation of point of view, he will be remembered a hundred more years from now. His novels are still making readers laugh today. Mark Twain made it possible for Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn’s adventures come to life on paper. These stories will forever be respected and never be forgotten. Work Cited Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Berkeley: University of California, 1982. Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: P. F. Collier amp; Sons, 1912. SparkNotes Editors. â€Å"SparkNote on The Adventures of Tom Sawyers† SparkNotes. com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. Web. 20 May 2013. SparkNotes Editors. â€Å"SparkNote on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn† SparkNotes. com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. Web. 20 May 2013. Mark Twain Biography. †Famous Biographies amp; TV Shows† A+E Television Networks, LLC. 28 May 2013.